So, update on what's been
going on in my life- finished editing the newest draft of my friend's
novel. I'm putting my English degree to its best use, by becoming a
book editor! Sadly, the majority of people equate editors with
proofreaders. While I am a stickler for grammar, most of my
editorials involve story structure, character development, and
backhanded compliment- there's very little on the actual prose.
Still, it's a way to say to myself “those three years of university
weren't a waste of time”. However, I have another reason for saying
that getting an English degree was worth it.
Let me get this out of
the way now- I don't think you could ever make a quantitative
argument that a degree majoring in English at a New Zealand
university is worth it, dollars spent in tuition fees balanced by a
fixed income when you contrast that degree with earnings from other Arts degrees. I
am aware that many, many people
see English degrees as just a hobby and a way for you to be able to
more eloquently explain why you're on unemployment benefit (har har,
that joke is as fresh as day-old sushi). However, we force students
to go through English education throughout high school all the way up
to Year 12. Why? To teach kids how to read? No. At age 5, most of
them can do that. So why do we teach English?
Well,
that turns out to be a difficult question to answer with many reasons
why but I'm going to give the answer that I think is the easiest to
understand. First off, there is such a thing as emotional
intelligence. There is skill in being able to recognize, interpret,
resist, and exploit the emotions of yourself and others. Don't
believe me? Consider times when you've done things impulsively, or
done things you've regretted, or acted in a way that was
self-destructive (smoking, binge-drinking, gambling). We are
creatures of emotion, and we need to be aware of this (teenagers, I
feel, are particularly lacking in this type of intelligence).
So,
how do you teach someone what to do when they're unbearably sad? How
do you teach someone to understand that they have an insatiable,
irrational desire for something? Well, make them read books, watch
films, write stories so they can have experiences that aren't their
own, and put these feelings into words which can be communicated to
others. I might not know what it's like to lose a parent, but I've
seen Forrest Gump and
(spoiler) the titular mother's character dies, and I was very sad.
Although it will be much sadder when one of my parents actually dies,
I will have, in some small way, have experienced this before and
recognize it for what it is.
So,
why do we need to recognize our own emotions? Because we aren't in
complete control of them, and if we let them, our emotions can spiral
out of control and leave us broken. This is why we have art- because
art isn't always supposed to make us happy, but make us feel
something.
I
suppose I'm writing this because I've been feeling down lately.
This is nothing new. The
end of semester is always hopelessly anticlimactic to me because I
always imagine it to be full of parties and drunken shenanigans, but
I have come to accept that it is more than likely stressed cramming
for exams and mid-winter blues. As a postgraduate student, I don't
have exams- I just have that gnawing feeling that my Master's degree
is never going to pay for itself. I suppose lately what's happening
is that I've been feeling ennui- that feeling of restlessness,
boredom, frustration of the tediousness of life. Incidentally Sylvia
Plath wrote one of my favourite lines of poetry about ennui- “tea
leaves thwart those who court catastrophe”.
However, I started this
blog in order to write down some of my feelings (dear god, if I ever
end up famous for becoming a bestselling novelist or the first person
to ever overdose on cappucinos, please don't include the majority of
my scribbles in my complete biography). What else am I feeling?
Tired, I suppose. Annoyed with myself at being unable to do any
serious writing of my new play. I tend to subscribe to the John Green
method of writing- just allow yourself to write terribly, and
eventually the few granules of quality will amass as you refine your
work. I like John Green, and I like his ouvre, but that is not really
how I work.
How do I work? Well,
this isn't exactly a proper answer but the usual response would be
“as little as possible”.
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